Archery World Cup Final: Dhiraj Bommaderava lone Indian in action – Preview

India's top-ranked recurve archer Dhiraj Bommadevara, the lone from the country to make the cut for the season-ending 2026 Archery World Cup Final this year, will be eyeing a maiden medal at the coveted event when he starts out against Turkey's Berkim Tumer on Sunday.

The one-day competition follows a straightforward knockout format beginning with the quarterfinals, meaning two wins will be enough for an archer to assure himself of a medal.

Dhiraj qualified for the elite eight-member field by virtue of his victory at the World Cup Stage 3 in Antalya. No other Indian archer has made the cut across the recurve and compound sections in the men's and women's categories.

As for the draw, it is a relatively favourable one for the 25-year-old Army man, who opens against Tumer, an archer he defeated in the pre-quarterfinals during his last World Cup appearance in Madrid in July, before bowing out in the last eight.

Should he clear the opening hurdle, the Vijayawada archer is likely to run into American great Brady Ellison in the semifinals.

Ellison, a multiple world champion and two-time Olympic medallist, will be in Mexico to defend his recurve men's title after winning his sixth World Cup Final trophy in Nanjing in 2025.

But Dhiraj has already shown that he can beat the American great, having defeated Ellison in the pre-quarterfinals of the 2023 World Cup in Antalya, a victory that helped him secure his maiden World Cup medal -- a bronze.

Since then, Dhiraj has added two more bronze medals and a gold to his World Cup tally.

The Saltillo final will also serve as an important final competition for Dhiraj ahead of the Asian Games in Japan next week, with the Indian set to fly directly to Aichi-Nagoya after the World Cup.

At the previous edition in Hangzhou, Dhiraj won a silver medal in the men's team event and will now be looking to add his maiden individual Asian Games medal.

The Indian has featured in the World Cup Final twice previously but is yet to win a medal.

At his maiden appearance in Hermosillo in 2023, Dhiraj stunned legendary Korean Kim Woo-jin in the quarterfinals before losing to another Korean, Lee Woo-seok, in the semifinals.

He then went down to Italy's Mauro Nespoli in the bronze-medal match.

At his next appearance in Tlaxcala in 2024, Dhiraj again reached the quarterfinals but was beaten by Woo-seok, the Paris Olympics bronze medallist.

The last Indian male recurve archer to win a medal at the World Cup Final was Jayanta Talukdar, who claimed bronze at the 2010 edition in Edinburgh.

Dola Banerjee is the most successful Indian archer in the World Cup Final history having won a gold in 2007. No Indian has won a gold since then but Deepika Kumari has the most World Cup Final medals -- five silver and one bronze from eight appreances.

The four individual winners in Saltillo will be crowned Hyundai Archery World Cup Champions and receive a cash prize of USD 36,000 each.

The runner-up will earn USD 18,000, while the third- and fourth-placed finishers will receive USD 9,800 and USD 1,800 respectively in each category.

The event marks the culmination of archery's premier international circuit, with eight athletes each in men's recurve, women's recurve, men's compound and women's compound competing for the coveted season-ending titles.

The 32 finalists secured their places either by winning one of the four World Cup stages -- in Puebla, Shanghai, Antalya and Madrid -- or by accumulating enough points in the Hyundai Archery World Cup rankings.

Two of the Nanjing 2025 World Cup Final champions will return to defend their titles.

Andrea Becerra will bid for a second successive women's compound crown, while world number two Brady Ellison will look to add a seventh World Cup Final trophy to his collection.

Where to watch Archery World Cup Final?

You can catch all the LIVE action from the 2026 Archery World Cup Final on Archery+.